Sci-fi rooted in reality, says author Robert Sawyer

Canadian Press, April 8, 1997

TORONTO (CP)  Canadian author Robert J. Sawyer figures he and other science-fiction writers are doing society a favor by helping people get a grip on what's going on around them.

"Rational, realistic, skeptical, logical thinking is the only
sensible way to deal with reality," Sawyer has said. "Science
fiction underscores that way of thinking."

Headlines have recently been full of people who are choosing
other ways of dealing with reality  the Heaven's Gate cult
members who committed suicide last month in San Diego, thinking
they could hitch a ride on a UFO following the Hale-Bopp comet;
the Solar Temple cult members who burned to death in Quebec,
believing they were going on to something greater.

Less dramatic but more pervasive are people who put stock in
crystals and tarot cards, astrology and past life regression.

Sawyer says it's easy to see why society would take a step
backward into old beliefs when humanity keeps getting slapped in
the face with its own insignificance.

"Every time you turn around you see some new photo from the
Hubble telescope or some new estimate of how old the universe
is," he said in an interview.

"Earth wasn't the only planet with life, and this isn't the only
star system with planets  we just keep getting smaller and
smaller and less and less significant."

Astrology appeals to people because it suggests the whole
universe has a direct impact on each individual, different from
its impact on other individuals, he said.

The same yearning for cosmic importance also feeds the conviction
that aliens are visiting Earth to abduct ordinary humans.

"They're interested in talking to you, they don't want to talk to
(physicist) Stephen Hawking or the president of the United
States, they want to pick up Cletus and his boys in the pickup
truck in Tennessee and that makes Cletus and Bubba really special
in the scheme of the universe."

Sawyer, a resident of the Toronto-area community of Thornhill,
gave up a successful freelance journalism career to write science
fiction full-time about eight years ago, and has been winning
critical acclaim since his first novel,
Golden Fleece, was published in 1990.

He has racked up an impressive list of awards as a literary
debunker of pseudo-science. Last year his book
The Terminal Experiment won the
Nebula  dubbed the Academy Award of
science fiction  for best novel. He'll find out April 20
whether his book Starplex (Ace, $7.99) has
won in the same category this year.

The action of Starplex takes place on a space exploration
vessel way out in the galaxy, but while the plot employs some
standard sci-fi techniques  including a motley assortment of
aliens manning the craft  the book isn't typical space opera
with wham-bam action from beginning to end.

Instead, Sawyer tackles the larger question of how life began,
and proposes an answer that is scientifically plausible  but
won't make any human feel more significant.

Suggesting answers to life's great questions is not a departure
for Sawyer, whose last novel debated the existence of the human
soul. For him, that's what really good science fiction is all
about.

"The questions that you answer in mainstream literature are will
the guy get the girl, will the girl get the guy, will the guy get
the job, will the girl have the success she wants in life," he
said, adding that those are interesting questions that can be
answered any number of ways.

"But they're not the deep questions. The deep questions are where
did we come from, as a race, as individuals, as a universe. Where
are we going, as a race, as individuals, as a universe. And
science fiction is the genre that lets us ask really big
questions."